Fewer than 200K left without power on Long Island

The Long Island Power Authority Wednesday morning said power has been restored to about 333,000 customers, but that 190,000 remained without electricity – including some critical care customers such as nursing homes –in the wake of Hurricane Irene.

LIPA said 523,000 customers lost power, making this the biggest storm to hit Long Island since Hurricane Gloria in 1985.

About 90,000 customers had electricity restored over the last 24 hours, LIPA COO Michael Hervey said in a press conference at National Grid in Hicksville.

While many customers saw their power return as restoration lit up Long Island, some municipal buildings, in North Haven and elsewhere, as well as four nursing homes, still remained without power as of mid-day Wednesday.

Hervey said neighborhoods may experience brief “intentional” outages as workers turn power off, in order to conduct repairs.

About “90 percent of our customers will have power restored by the end of the day Friday,” he said.

National Grid as well as contractors from around the nation have been working to restore power for LIPA, which owns the area’s transmission and distribution grid. LIPA contracts with National Grid to maintain, repair and otherwise conduct day-to-day operations. About 6,500 workers are taking part in the effort.

“We’re at the point in our restoration where large blocks of customers are being restored almost on an hourly basis,” Hervey said.

Power has been restored to hospitals, although four nursing homes remained without electricity early Wednesday, according to John Bruckner, National Grid’s president for Long Island electric transmission and distribution services.

“The challenge going forward is some of the rear property work that needs to be done,” Bruckner said.

As National Grid and LIPA worked to restore power, some questioned why so many customers remained in the dark as to time tables.

“LIPA has not effectively informed residents of where they are and when they intend to restore power in specific neighborhoods,” Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano wrote on Twitter.

LIPA, which has been updating information twice daily as well as holding private calls with reporters, has shifted workers from billing and collections to restoration, including handling calls. LIPA said it suspended bill collections.

“We know our customers are looking for more information from us,” Hervey said, adding that since Monday more than 90,000 outbound calls have been made. “By end of day, we hope to call out to nearly every customer with status or update.”

The LIPA website indicated restoration is in progress across Long Island, but didn’t provide additional information as to time. LIPA said it has made 686,000 calls since the storm began.

The site indicated that 37,000 customers in Brookhaven, 26,000 in Oyster Bay, 25,000 in Hempstead, 20,000 in Huntington, 18,000 in Islip and 17,000 in North Hempstead were out of power.

Although the biggest damage has been or is being repaired, smaller problems could still leave customers in the dark for days, Bruckner said.

As lines are repaired, broken transformers, serving smaller numbers of customers, may keep power off for some.

That could create situations where power goes on for most houses, leaving only a handful in a neighborhood without electricity.

“The challenge is that becomes a very small outage,” Bruckner said. “I understand it’s very difficult for our customers to see. Hopefully, customers can be good neighbors and help those around them.”

National Grid has taken 713 poles, 760,000 feet of cable and 633 transformers out of stock so it can perform repairs.

Although National Grid didn’t give a count of poles that must be replaced, Bruckner said that’s expected to be relatively low.

“Most poles fared well,” he said, noting LIPA has spent heavily on replacing poles over the years.

There are more than 5,000 “damage locations” across Long Island, Bruckner said. “The overwhelming majority of that’s been tree related,” he added. “We may experience additional outages as tree limbs continue to fall off.”

Hervey said that in less than 72 hours since restoration began, power has been restored to about two-thirds of customers out of service.

“We know that’s no consolation for customers that are still out,” Hervey said. “I want to assure those 190,000 customers that we are doing everything we possibly can to restore your power.”

5 comments

Why are we not informed as to why and when power will be restored. I don,t see any work in my area. Mangano called 20 times before the storm. Now where is he and LIPA! Every time it it rains we lose power. After Gloria it was 11 days. Now it,s 4 already. Maybe if rates gfo up higher service will improve. We are already highest I the USA.

I lost power Saturday evening, before the storm even started. Half of my neighborhood in Syosset never lost power. Almost everyone else got power back last night. A group of 30-40 houses remains dark — food rotted and thrown out, no laundry, no nothing. Nobody has seen a LIPA truck anywhere. LIPA can’t call anyone since our phones are all down, too. I happened to see six LIPA trucks in a fairly concealed parking lot in Jericho — as expected, the crews (making time and a half) were having coffee and donuts!I was not surprised at all.And I pay good money each month for this incompetence. Mr. Mangano, Mr. Venditto – why are you not speaking out for your good neighbors and asking that these clowns actually do something?

We need an LIFA – Long Islanders for Accountability. LIPA needs to be held accountable for its absymal failure. In spite of all the disaster preparedness fees it’s charged its customers over the years, it’s apparent that LIPA was completely unprepared for Tropical Storm Irene. Completely. Where did that money go? And where were our elected officials? Our county and town supervisors, our village mayors? Obviously if our infrastructure is this fragile, no one is doing their job.

We need to make sure they start doing their jobs now, before the storm rolls in.

About the Author

Claude Solnik covers healthcare, finance, and technology/energy for Long Island Business News.